Toward a twenty-first-century model for the collaborative care and curation of human remains

Currently, Canadian and U.S. museums and other repositories curate more than 175,000 North American Indigenous human remains. Despite these individuals’ great significance to descendant communities and potential value for substantive scientific research, many museums struggle to implement flexible and sustainable collections care procedures that meet contemporary curatorial standards. To address these issues, the Field Museum is piloting forward thinking, collaborative, and ethical curation, documentation, and physical care of the approximately 1,800 North American human remains housed in its collection. This initiative as part of a three-year Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded grant aims to build networks among scientific, museum, academic, First Nations, and Native American representatives. A symposium held with a number of partners from across North America has also shaped our approach through the dialogues on collaborative curation fostered both during and following the event. These discussions have provided the Museum with important themes, goals, and lessons, which have guided the subsequent course of the program, fostering community, providing resources, and promoting public outreach. To this same end, the Museum has implemented an updated and comprehensive human remains collections policy that covers all individuals held in the Museum’s collections.